Harvey Milk Plaza's benches removed

S.F. Neighborhoods

Updated 4:46 pm, Monday, November 5, 2012

Complaints about people sleeping, like this person in September, were among the reasons the benches were removed.

Complaints about people sleeping, like this person in September, were among the reasons the benches were removed.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Harvey Milk Plaza's benches removed

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(11-05) 16:44 PST SAN FRANCISCO --

The purple benches at San Francisco's Harvey Milk Plaza were removed Friday after growing complaints that they had become a loophole for drunks and others to avoid the city ordinance prohibiting sitting or lying on walkways.

The removal decision was made Monday by the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District, the community group that paid $40,000 to install the benches in 2010 and has been discussing their adverse impact on the plaza for months. The group paid $1,800 more to remove the benches, said Andrea Aiello, executive director of the benefit district.

The plaza sits at the heart of the Castro neighborhood, above the Castro Muni Station, which provides panhandlers with a steady flow of passers-by.

In the past month, Aiello said, more and more transients had been gathering on the benches. The board's decision was applauded by some walking by Friday morning as the seats were taken out.

"It's about time," said Dan Glazer, owner of the nearby bakeshop Hot Cookie. "They pee, they defecate, and they leave their garbage there. They have no respect for the plaza or for Harvey Milk and what he meant to our community."

"Generally, they're around, but that's just San Francisco," he said. "I think it's a drastic choice. Just because certain people are complaining, everybody else has to suffer (without benches)."

Jane Haggerstone, an employee at Sun Days Tanning Salon across from the plaza, echoed that sentiment.

"It's a shame because a lot of people have to wait for the buses and it would be nice for them to sit," she said.

But Haggerstone acknowledged that it often got dicey walking by the transients who claimed the benches. They would hassle her, and whenever too many were gathered there, she would walk up the street to avoid them.

City Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose district includes the Castro, said the transients lolling about the plaza with their knapsacks and sleeping bags were "No. 2 after nudity" in complaints he received from his constituents. Homeless outreach would often offer them services, he said, but many of the bench sitters were nomads and didn't want the help.

"The situation with camping and sit/lie and drugs and violence had just gotten out of control," Wiener said.

The benches had to go for the vagrants to go, he added.

Jacob Davis, 21, said he was once homeless and frequented the plaza. But the last time he tried to sleep on the benches, someone kicked him in the face.

Davis said he recently found work and housing and got off the streets, but because of that, he was targeted by the bench sitters.

"I don't know why they feel entitled," he said, sitting at the adjacent Jane Warner Plaza. "If you're not part of that little group, you can't sit there."

"Good riddance," he added.

Without the benches, no one will be sitting at Harvey Milk Plaza, and as of Friday afternoon, the area was clean and devoid of its usual scruffy occupants.

Wiener said there's already talk about getting funding for a complete plaza remodel.

"It's all very preliminary, but it's Harvey Milk Plaza," he said. "There are many people, myself included, that think this plaza should be an absolute honor to Harvey Milk and not the poorly designed, secluded place it is now."

The online version of this story was updated and corrected on Nov. 5, 2012..